Youssarian gets lucky on Meerkat Manor

The soap opera at Meerkat Manor continues, all tease and little action.

The Internet buzzed all summer as fans of the quirky Animal Planet show demanded to know what happened to Shakespeare. But the new season’s back-to-back shows Friday offered no news of the loyal little guy, who last season survived a nasty bite by a puff adder before disappearing after a fight with archrivals, the Lazuli.

Tosca, banished for mating without her mother’s consent, is missing in action, too.

And Youssarian finally gets lucky, but naturally, he can’t stop while he’s ahead.

It’s winter in Africa’s Kalahari desert, where the Whiskers meerkat clan lives in a series of burrows. Times are tough.

Flower, their dominant female, is still firmly in control — she was the one who forced out Tosca — two months after the big fight, which was caught on camera by the underground burrow cams used by Cambridge University researchers studying the foot-tall creatures.

The Whiskers are champion diggers, and dirt flies as the show opens and three dozen or so members of the clan forage for food. Flower didn’t hesitate last season to snatch a juicy millipede from her own babies, but now, she and the others have to settle for beetle and ant larvae.

Not so good.

The Lazuli have had a hard winter, too, giving Youssarian an opening. Big Si, their dominant male, died shortly after the big fight, leaving their dominant female, Cazanna, without a mate. One of her sons, J.D., takes charge, but he can’t mate with his own mom.

Youssarian scurries their way.

He used to be the alpha male of the Whiskers but got bounced by his brother, Flower’s mate, Zaphod. Ever since, he’s been skulking around, looking for action.

On the way, he comes across Pancake, an outcast Lazuli whose tick-infested face offers proof of her unloved status. Youssarian can’t resist and the two duck into a handy burrow. But the next morning, he’s seen slinking away in search of his ultimate goal, Cazanna. No word on whether he at least picked off the ticks on Pancake’s face.

He tries to sneak closer to Cazanna, who is such a prize that a couple of fellow Whiskers males, Mitch and Big Will, show up, too. But J.D. and other Lazuli menfolk are no slackers, and the Whiskers guys can’t get close. Cazanna looks too busy digging for scorpions to munch to even notice her would-be suitors.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Whiskers gang takes Flower’s latest litter of pups — yes, she has apparently had another litter — on their first foraging expedition.

Narrator Sean Astin continues to threaten lurking danger, but so far, it’s all close calls.

Zaphod spots an eagle, and the group hustles into a nearby burrow until it moves on. An uberpoiosonous cape cobra slithers into one of the Whiskers’ burrows for the night, but the meerkats somehow avoid it.

Still, there’s the promise of trouble ahead: A new groups of rivals, the tail-waving Commandos, has moved into the neighborhood.